BOOK EXCERPT
Worship in the Darkness: 'My Heart Will Choose to Say'
By Matt and Beth Redman
From Blessed Be Your Name: Worshipping God on the Road Marked with Suffering
CBN.com
– Worship is always a choice. At times it’s an easy, straightforward one. When life is peaceful and painless, the choice to respond to God in thanksgiving and praise may not be such a hard one to make. But at other times in our lives, worship becomes a much gutsier decision. Caught up amidst a whirlwind of pain and confusion, the decision to cry out “yet I will praise You” is a costly act of devotion. In the life of every worshipper there will come times when worship meets with suffering. And these moments shape what kind of worshippers we will become. Yes, praise be to God for times of abundance and plenty in our lives—those carefree days full of peace and laughter. Yet, we praise Him also in the wilderness times—those dark and stormy seasons of the soul where we’re left crying out with the Psalmist, “How long, O Lord, how long?”
When trials come, trust must arise. When there’s nothing to shake the boat, our trust in God is rarely tested. Seasons of stillness and calm are wonderful—yet before too long the winds will start to gather—and we’ll find ourselves caught up once again in the storms of life. The question then is this: can we still find our way to the place of praise? We may have faith to believe that He is God of the calm—but do we also have faith enough to believe Him as God of the storm? He is God of both the hurricane and the gentle breeze. The One who rules and reigns amidst all of the earthquakes of this life—those times when our whole world seems to be shaking and breaking apart.
For both of us, growing up was not an easy journey. Our childhood and teenage years were marked by family break up, and loss. Looking back now, our little stories are a testimony to the rescuing and restoring nature of God. Matt writes:
For the first seven years of my life I was a carefree and contented little boy. All that changed one night in March 1981 when my Dad died suddenly. It was a shocking time, and looking back now I can still picture the moment I was told of His death. A few years later I found out he’d actually committed suicide—which came as a bit of an aftershock, and brought with it some more painful questions. Was it anything to do with me? Did he not love us enough to stay around? But by the grace of God, this painful season propelled me towards Him, and not away from Him.
A year or two later my Mum (herself a passionate follower of Christ) re-married—and at first it felt like I had a new father. However, a couple of years in, things turned sour and we soon discovered he wasn’t the man of integrity and faithfulness he claimed to be. After mistreating us as a family, and abusing my trust, he was forced to leave. And again we found ourselves “fatherless.”
In these dark seasons of the soul, faith is either strengthened or broken. Contentment and trust build us up. Bitterness and complaint eat us up. History is full of people who chose the path of bitterness and found themselves in an even worse place than where they started. But the wise worshipper knows that the only healthy way ahead is to take all we know of God and turn it into trust and praise. By His grace, even in those early teenage years I had seen enough to know that God was “good”—and that time would tell He was in control. Looking back now, I can see His Father’s heart and His Sovereign hand all over that season. The passage of time has demonstrated what all along I knew to be true—that God is always closer and kinder than we know - a father to the fatherless.
Beth also had a grueling childhood, bullied and abused by people she should have been able to trust. The key for both of us was that we’d seen enough of Jesus to enable us to endure. And whilst the enemy may have tried to use these bad circumstances to contradict the goodness of God in our minds and hearts, by the grace of God we’d encountered Him strongly enough to trust Him—even in seasons when nothing seemed to make sense.
Such times are like a case of “spiritual car sickness.” Motion sickness when you travel in a car is caused by your senses contradicting each other. Say for example, you choose to read a book as you travel. The balance sensors in your ear tell you that you’re moving around fast—yet your eyes, report that you’re not. It’s a case of conflicting senses. One way to cure the sickness can be to add more evidence to what you know to be correct. For example, rolling down the window and sticking your hand out into the fast-moving air will help confirm to your brain that you are indeed in motion.
The same is true of the spiritual life. There may come seasons of pain when we desperately try to cling on to what we know to be true about God, yet are utterly confused by the hardship we’re experiencing. Our knowledge of Scripture tells us that God is eternally good, yet at the same time a very tough life situation seems to be screaming the complete opposite at us. Before long, we find ourselves in a kind of spiritual motion sickness—living in the tension of what we think we know to be true, and the deep pain that seems to contradict it.
The key is to reinforce what deep down you know to be true, by adding extra revelation. Spiritually speaking, roll down the window and stick your hand out. Open the Bible and feed upon the truths of God and His faithfulness. Strengthen your understanding of His ways as you read. Find encouragement in the lives of those who chose to trust His power, grace and purpose amidst their darkest hours. Look over His track record in your own life, and in the lives of those you know to love Him. See how often He has poured out the oil of kindness in times of trouble. On how many occasions He has rescued seemingly at the last possible moment—or turned around something which at the time seemed like it could never lead to fruitfulness. All of these things build faith in us. And faith will always fan the flames of worship.
The book of Lamentations gives us a great example of a worshipper who experienced pain, yet used the act of “remembering” as a pathway to praise. The Message words it like this:
I remember it all . . . the feeling of hitting rock bottom. But there’s one other thing I remember, and remembering I keep a grip on hope.” (Lam. 3:20)
What a fantastic way to give voice to this powerful principle. The discipline of “remembering” helps us to keep a grip on hope, and find our way onto the paths of praise. As the writer reminds his soul in the following verses:
God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out. His merciful love couldn’t have dried up. They’re created new every morning.”
Returning to the car-sickness illustration, the worshipper here is consciously rolling down the window and sticking His hand out into the air, that He might be affirmed and strengthened in what his heart, deep down, knows to be true about God.
The writer of Lamentations was not alone in this faith-building technique. The Psalmists were constantly practicing this discipline. In so many of the Psalms the writer recalls the story of God’s faithfulness as a bridge towards worship and hope. Psalm 13, for example, begins with a desperate cry, but ends with a reminder of God’s track-record in His life:
How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? (vv. 1-2.)
Five urgent questions from a worshipper longing to be free of his suffering. Yet He ends His song with the choice to believe and trust in the powerful and merciful nature of His God:
But I trust in Your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in Your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for He has been good to me (vv. 5-6).
The Psalmist here teaches us a beautiful truth: remembering releases rejoicing. Throughout the ages, the people of God have found strength in this approach. Take for example the writer of the old hymn, “On Christ the solid rock I stand”—a song deeply rooted in the truth of an unchangeable, unshakeable Savior:
When darkness seems to hide His face,
I rest on His unchanging grace.
In other words, in times when we can’t seem to perceive God amidst our pain, and the clouds of anxiety and fear close in on us, the way forward is to remind ourselves of what we know to be true and dependable—the unchanging grace of God.
It’s a little like looking at the moon. We’ve all seen a full moon, and therefore know something of its form. But we don’t always witness it like this—some nights we see a half moon, at other times just a small slither of moon. And on some occasions we see almost nothing at all—just the faintest outline hidden by a cloudy night sky. Yet the point is this—even when the moon is obstructed from our view, we are still convinced of its existence and true form, because of what we have seen in the past. The same is true of our walk as worshippers of Jesus. At times, painful life circumstances seem to obstruct our view of Him, and of His goodness. But we have seen the form of the Lord many times before—in life and in Scripture—and know Him to be as good and as kind as He ever was. Faced with challenging times, a wise worshipper looks over the form of the Lord—recalling the soul-refreshing wonders of His nature and attributes, and through them finding a way to the place of praise. Our Father in heaven has an incredible track record.
Faced with anguish and distress, the Psalmist even talked to himself. To find strength and hope, he repeatedly speaks to His soul, being reminded that there’s One who can save him. Twice he cries out:
Why are you downcast o my soul? Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God. (Ps. 42:5,11)
If you yourself are in a season of struggle, take a minute even now to remind yourself of the God who sees your struggle. It’s possible to talk your soul into a place of hope. We worship a triumphant Savior, a victorious King. The all-powerful and all-loving God who is faithful in all He says and gracious in all He does. The One who has never been anxious, overwhelmed or out-smarted. The God of unbroken promises. When He acts, no one can reverse it. When he speaks, His commands never return empty. The God who never wastes His words. The doors he chooses to open, no one can close, and the doors He purposes to close, no one can open. No plan of His has ever been thwarted. No one has ever out-maneuvered Him, out-lived Him or out-loved Him. He remains as faithful as the day He created you in love, and as powerful as the day He spoke the world into being. And in your brokenness He stays as close and as involved as you want Him to be.
To worship God is to tell Him we believe Him for who He says He is. Every day we’re faced with choices to either acknowledge and proclaim Him as the great and merciful God He declares Himself to be—or instead to deny Him. Intense though it may sound, the truth is this: if we are to deny something good about God, we automatically imply something bad about Him. If we deny God’s sovereignty and power, then we imply, that to a degree at least, He is weak and has lost control. If we can’t bring ourselves to trust that He is full of mercy, then perhaps, at least in part, we’re implying that He has a mean or uncaring streak. There is actually no middle ground. He either is the all-powerful, all loving God His word declares Him to be—or He is not.
This may sound a touch harsh—and please hear it in the context of the incredible wealth of patience, kindness and compassion stored up for us in the heart of God. For in His amazing grace our heavenly Father finds delight even in the most broken and fragile of our offerings—in the same way that an earthly father will rejoice upon receiving a simple yet heartfelt piece of art from his young child. Yet this is only one side of the mystery—for our God is also the majestic and Holy King—worthy to be trusted and believed in for the wonderful truths of who He says He is. He desires and requires faith, trust and obedience—worshippers who stake their lives on the truths of His nature and attributes. Note the heart posture of a Nazi concentration camp prisoner who once scribbled these lines onto the wall of his cell:
I believe in the sun
Even when it is not shining.
I believe in love,
Even when I feel it not.
I believe in God
Even when He is silent.1
Yes, every act of worship is a choice—a decision to believe and respond to God for who He says He is—no matter how pressing our circumstances. And the greater the pain we’re experiencing, the greater a choice it may be. Sometimes we will walk blindly, unable to understand why we are going through a certain situation—our only comfort being the knowledge that God Himself is not walking blindly—but instead wisely, kindly and firmly in control. Indeed, as we will begin to see, so often our Father in heaven will take our broken moments and weave them into a powerful tapestry to the glory of His name.
Note
1. David Pytches, Can Anyone Be a Leader (Trowbridge, Wiltshire, U.K.: Eagle Publishing Ltd., 2004) p.43.
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From Blessed be Your Name, © 2005 by Matt and Beth Redman. Published by Regal Books, www.regalbooks.com. Used by permission. All rights reserved
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